Love, Baby: a Crescent Cove Romantic Comedy Colletion

by Quinn, Taryn

  Ian sighed. “She’s fine.”

  “And the baby?”

  “He’s perfect. Kicks up a storm hard enough for me to feel it most nights.”

  “Is that because you’re on top of her at the time?”

  “Goes to show how much you know. At this stage, she’s on top of me.”

  I shook my head. “Have you picked a name?”

  “No. Our lists have lists. You’re going to come out for the birth.”

  It wasn’t a question. “Is this your new way to try to get me to work with you? And Kellan?” I couldn’t hide the touch of sarcasm in my tone.

  Sneaking around working together and inviting me to join in after the fact. I saw how it was.

  “No, it’s my ongoing way to demonstrate you’re family to me, and as someone who had to fight for his, that’s important.”

  I blew out a breath. “Low blow. Very low blow.”

  “I play to win. So? Flynn’s already sent his regrets, but only because he’ll be out of the country for some shows and can’t rebook them.”

  The third spoke of our trio was a crafty one, I had to give him that. Not that I thought he was lying.

  Probably.

  “You know I’ll be there. But don’t expect me to boil any cloths or help with any weird breathing exercises.”

  “Think we have that covered. Also, we have access to hospitals in Turnbull, just in case you didn’t realize.”

  “Jackass. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Think about what I said. I don’t want you to pass up a chance with Ivy. She’s a lovely girl, and lovely girls aren’t alone for long. Someone wise told me that when Zoe and I weren’t together—not you, because you aren’t—and I’m paying it forward.”

  “Yes, Anthony Robbins. I hear you. Loud and clear.” Nothing I hadn’t told myself a million times.

  For all I knew, it was already too late. Ivy could already be in love with someone else. Just because Ian didn’t know didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. Ivy would probably be circumspect when she was around the other women.

  My mate certainly had been when he’d told me not to worry all those years ago that Darla seemed distant. Little had I known he was handling the problem just fine—literally and figuratively.

  “Thick as a brick,” Ian muttered. “Watch the mail.”

  Then he hung up before I could.

  Watch the mail? For what?

  I didn’t have time to ponder that right now. I put my headphones on. I had a song to finish.

  Alas, I still did at past eight the next morning when I finally looked up again. The sun was agonizingly bright and my stomach had sent up a roar deafening enough to wake the neighbors. I made coffee using my trusty tumbler and stumbled into the shower, leaning against the tiled wall as I poured the heavenly brew down my throat.

  It didn’t help. Nor did the water jabbing icy needles into my scalp and shoulders.

  The song I’d been working on for the new Ripper Records artist who needed a surefire hit—good luck there—wasn’t quite done. I’d made some progress before switching over to an equally thorny composition.

  The song I’d written for Ivy.

  I couldn’t figure out how to end it. The last few lines had me stymied. Wondering why she’d called me and not having the stones to return her call didn’t help.

  Carrying you in my pocket

  When I’m so far away

  Your scent in my mind, flavor on my tongue

  Let’s live while we’re still young

  Knowing it might end

  Has to end

  Won’t make me not stay

  But I hadn’t stayed. I hadn’t gone back when every part of me felt called to her. It had to be the timeline. It had been more than a month.

  And her voice was on my phone right now. All I had to do was press play.

  I just couldn’t do it.

  Not yet.

  I got out of the shower and toweled down with one hand while I checked the rest of my voicemails. Work, work, and more work. I had a call from someone in Dublin, oddly enough, and I’d been wanting to get home to see my folks. If I could make the two coincide—

  Or I could just hop on a fucking plane and make it happen. I didn’t have to make it a write-off worthy expense. Family was more important than profits and losses.

  Running from Ivy, are you? Now even the opposite coast isn’t far enough away?

  I wasn’t running from. I was running to.

  Sure you are, buddy.

  After I got some goddamn sleep.

  Blearily, I rubbed my eyes and put in a quick call to my travel agent. I’d let her handle it. I needed ten hours down.

  “When do you want to go?” my travel agent asked.

  “What’s today?”

  “Thursday, Rory.” She was used to me.

  “Friday night.” It would require some shuffling—all right, a lot of it—but all of a sudden, I was certain I needed to be home.

  Even if I’d never been certain of that before in my life.

  “Can you make that happen?” I asked into the silence.

  “Give me a couple hours. No guarantees on what class.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll take coach if need be.”

  Good thing I’d been so open-minded, because that was exactly what I got.

  Once I finally arrived in Dublin what felt like a century later, I also took the most rubbish rental vehicle I’d ever encountered.

  But less than seventy-two hours later, I was standing on the moss-covered stoop of the cottage where I’d grown up, drawing in great breaths of sea-tinged air. The scents of nature surrounded me. Flowers I’d been given names for since I was a child and had never bothered to commit to memory. And behind me, children shouted and laughed as they wheeled up the uneven street.

  I lifted my hand to knock on the rounded door my mum had painted an eye-searing red. It swung open and the woman in question stared at me, her soft blue eyes more lined, her perfect bow mouth slack with shock.

  “Rory Michael.”

  It made me smile despite the fatigue from the trip that hung heavy on my shoulders. “Ma.”

  She hauled me in for a hard hug that rattled my ribs and settled my heart into a more regular rhythm. I hadn’t even realized how out of whack I was until I felt her arms around me.

  Worse, I wouldn’t have said I even derived comfort from her in that way. Was I so unaware of my true feelings? Could I be that daft?

  She drew me back and cupped my cheeks. I towered over her, but she’d always closed the distance between us as if will was enough to make it less. “You’re too thin.”

  I scuffed my sneaker. “I haven’t lost more than half a stone.”

  That wasn’t exactly accurate. I hadn’t been eating. I wasn’t close to wasting away, but my appetite wasn’t what it had been.

  I definitely couldn’t go near ice cream.

  “Your mum knows. Now you come in here and take a load off.” Before I could argue, she stepped back into the small foyer and called up the stairs. “Padraig, we have a visitor.”

  I stepped over the threshold and dropped my bag. I’d traveled light as always. “Oh, Ma, he’s probably busy—”

  My da appeared on the landing, his halo of bushy salt-and-pepper hair whiter than I remembered. How long had it been since I’d been home? It shamed me that I couldn’t remember.

  That if not for my turmoil over Ivy and what that blasted town Crescent Cove had done to me, I might not even care.

  “Son.” He didn’t ask me what I was doing here, or why I hadn’t called to warn them, just thundered down the stairs and pulled me into another bone-crushing hug. “You’re too thin.”

  I had to laugh as we eased apart. “Is there a script?”

  “No, we have eyes. You look good otherwise. Tired,” my mum declared after another inspection. “And you need a haircut. Don’t you have a barber in California?”

  The way she pronounced it always made me smile.
To her, LA might as well have been located on the sun. “I do. Haven’t had a chance to visit one recently.”

  “Or eat.” My mum shook her head and waved me down the hall to the kitchen. “I just made lunch. You’re in luck.”

  “You don’t have to go to any trouble—”

  “It’s no trouble, boy. Didn’t you hear her say she just finished making lunch?” My father dropped his beefy arm around my shoulders. “Besides, it’s not often our oldest boy comes around. How long’s it been?

  “Not more than a year.”

  “Don’t lie to your father,” my mum admonished as she moved to the little stove and ladled out big stoneware bowls of soup. “Closer to two.”

  “I think three. Maureen wasn’t even seeing Kevin then and she’s already pregnant with their first.”

  “What? Maureen’s pregnant? She didn’t call me.” I scrubbed a hand over my face and tried to cut through the cobwebs enough to remember. Had she? I wasn’t the best at returning non-work calls. “I don’t think.”

  “She called you. Six times.”

  “No. That can’t be so.”

  “She has the call log to prove it. She showed it to your mum.” My da jerked his thumb at my mother, and I hurried to help her with the bowls of stew. The smell of the rich, meaty soup made my stomach growl.

  “I don’t think it was six,” I muttered as I carted them one by one to the cozy round table set by the windows. A sprig of yellow flowers sat in the middle of it, cheery and quaint.

  “It surely was. It would’ve been more if she didn’t know better than to waste her coins on transatlantic calls you wouldn’t take.”

  “I would’ve taken it had I known, but I was working—”

  “You can’t take it with you. All your money and your gold records and your fancy house won’t keep you out of the grave.”

  “Padraig,” my mum snapped. “Can you let the boy alone for an hour before you start in on him?”

  “Start? I’ve been saying the same things since he flew out of here. Barely a man and gone to a country where he knew no one. Didn’t want his roots. Had no use for them. Now you’re back at our door.” He sat down heavily at the table and stabbed his spoon into his stew, splashing it. “Being happy to see him doesn’t change the fact I still have half a mind to paddle his behind.”

  This was why I came home so readily. Five minutes in and threats of violence ensued.

  And I hadn’t even had lunch yet.

  I accepted the loaf of fresh bread my mother offered, but I didn’t sit. I couldn’t. “What would you have me do then? Stay here and beat my clothes on a rock and grow a vegetable garden?”

  The quick flush in my mum’s cheeks made me rue the words. Yes, she did those things. Not out of necessity, but because they made sense to her. Air-dried clothes were so much nicer than those from the dryer. Homegrown vegetables tasted better in her stew.

  When I stopped ranting long enough to taste it, I had to agree.

  “You have talents we don’t. There’s a reason the world listens to you. You have something to say. Now sit if you’re going to eat my stew.”

  I sat. And I ate like a starving man.

  The next time I looked up, my mum was watching me from the other side of the table. I hadn’t even noticed her take a seat. I’d been too busy inhaling her stew and swallowing her glorious brown bread nearly whole.

  “Padraig, go fish.”

  My father’s head snapped up. Like me, he’d sucked down his stew and was breaking off another piece of bread. “Pardon?”

  “You heard me. Take the boat and go cast a line.”

  The boat? He had a fecking boat?

  Maybe I really hadn’t visited for three years. My younger sister round with a baby, my father with a boat. My brother might’ve run off with a harem of pole dancers for all I knew.

  “Is Thomas married?”

  My mum frowned at me. “He’s in university. Don’t you even remember the age of your own brother?”

  The disappointment in her voice knocked me down half a dozen pegs. I reached out to cover her hand with my own. Her skin was soft enough to tease out more memories than I could stand from the hope chest I’d buried them in. “I remember. It just seems so much has changed.”

  My father rose. “Maybe you should come around more often.”

  “Yes.” I swallowed deeply. “I should. I will.”

  He grunted. “Promises. Don’t make ones you can’t keep.”

  “I won’t. I don’t.” Which was why I never made any, unless I was absolutely certain I would never break them.

  My father finished off his piece, then shoved the remaining heel of bread in his pocket, nearly ripping it from my mouth. He’d gone halfway down the hall before he came back and set it on my napkin. I stared at it as if the thing might bite. “You need to eat,” he said gruffly before he stomped off and shut the front door behind him.

  “He loves you.”

  “Not so sure about that.” But I tore into the bread just the same. “You clearly thought he must be serious about the paddling, which is why you sent him away.”

  “No, I knew you’d never tell me about the girl if he didn’t leave.”

  I choked on the bread and a chunk of it splattered in the remnants of my stew. Precious few bits were left, mostly just detestable carrots. “Girl? What girl? I don’t see any girl.”

  My mum cocked a brow and dug into her own stew. “You were always a rubbish liar.”

  “It’s not a lie. I don’t see a girl here, do you?”

  “Rory Michael.”

  I fished out the piece of bread, dunking it more thoroughly before I chewed and swallowed. “How did you know?”

  “Because you came home,” she said simply.

  “Is there anything to drink?”

  “Milk on the door as always.”

  I ducked my head, a little embarrassed she still thought I preferred milk over any other drink. Mostly because it was true.

  No wonder I’d fallen for my dairy queen.

  I retrieved the glass bottle of milk and got down a glass, filling it to the brim. Then I returned to the table and took out my phone.

  It contained two things that preyed on my mind. One, the voicemail I still hadn’t listened to. And…this.

  I scrolled through my picture app and found the right one. In it, Ivy was laughing at something Maggie and Zoe had said. I’d taken it right before we’d played Nickelback’s “Animals” on stage. She was so beautiful I’d just had to save the moment. To have tangible proof she’d existed in my life. With one glimpse, I could hear her laughter and carry it with me as if I’d never left.

  “This is Ivy.” I pushed the phone across the table.

  My mum picked it up and sighed. “Oh, she’s lovely, isn’t she? Irish? She must be, with that coloring.”

  “She’s never said. Her last name is Beck.”

  “Irish,” she proclaimed. “Do you love her?”

  I didn’t even hesitate. “Yes.” I rubbed my throat to get it working again. “Is it possible to fall in love in one night?” In one hour? “It must be, because I’ve done it.” I let out a rusty laugh. “And I didn’t even realize until you just asked me. At least not to put a name to it.”

  She set down my phone, still smiling faintly. “You never put a name to much. You just keep your head down and work while life passes you by.”

  I drained my milk. It was easier than acknowledging she was right.

  Also, nothing was quite as good as milk from home.

  “Does she love you back?”

  “I don’t—we haven’t ever—I think she may want to let me down easily.”

  My mother just waited for me to make sense. I was waiting too.

  I tried to explain what had happened between us, more or less. The way we’d met and how I’d left and then returned a month later. I probably slightly exaggerated how well we’d gotten to know each other and minimized exactly how many times we’d learned about each other in a�
��carnal fashion. But really, what was more intimate? And I wasn’t in a habit of falling in love with women I shagged, so that wasn’t a consideration. Our time together had been accelerated certainly, but everything else between us had been too.

  At least on my end. I couldn’t say for sure how she felt.

  Because you’re too much of a wuss to listen to that voicemail.

  “So, you flew here instead of flying to her and confessing your feelings to her. As if she’s Darla and you’ll surely find her having relations with some friend of yours.”

  “You know entirely too much,” I mumbled.

  “I do. Which is exactly why you came to your mum.” She slid my phone back to me and tugged on my fingers. “She’s glad, you know. She misses you very much. And those chats we used to have.” She drew back her hand, and I gripped my phone to have something to hold onto.

  Ivy’s laughing eyes taunted me.

  “I don’t think she’s Darla.”

  “No?”

  “No. Okay, not really, in the logical part of my brain. But in the illogical part, I wonder if it’s so overwhelming because it was so fast. We haven’t spent much time together and distance makes it all more romantic.”

  “There was a saying I loved. That distance extinguishes a small flame and inflames the great. Paraphrasing of course. Do you feel extinguished?” Her bland smile told me she knew my answer even before I voiced it.

  “No, but her feelings matter too.”

  “They do, aye. You should find out what they are then, shouldn’t you?”

  I grinned. “Do you make house calls?”

  “Absolutely. But you’ve never invited me to your home.”

  My grin faded. “Surely I have—” Then I fell silent. “You’re probably right. It was an oversight. I would love for you to come. You and Da. And Thomas and Maureen and her…belly.”

  My mum chuckled drily. “She has a fiancé now too.”

  “Him too. You’re all invited. There’s room. Unless—”

  I broke off. Frowned. Likely would’ve choked again if I had anything in my throat but air.